Thoughts of a Dying Star
by silversurf4
Summary: Is Dani dead? Read it and see...  Tell me your thoughts - reviews encouraged.  Completed August 6, 2010.
1. Chapter 1  Thoughts of a Dying Star

**Thoughts of a Dying Star**

Reese blinked awake to a weird sensation or rather the lack of one. She was face up, flat on her back, but she couldn't remember how she got there. She knew she was awake, but it was as if someone hooked up her cable wrong, the picture was there, but the sound strangely absent. The absence of sound made it very easy to focus on the visuals.

Above her Crews moved his mouth, saying her name, she could tell from the formation of his cracked lips. She thought absently that man really should wear Chap Stick as she subconsciously licked her own dry lips. Crews ran his hand through his short hair mussing it and knelt beside her. His hand hovered over her as he fought an internal struggle; he wanted to touch her but restrained himself.

He looked like an angel with his ginger colored hair ringed in a sunny halo. He spoke again softly; she could tell it was gentler although she still couldn't hear because his eyes changed. His gaze became a caress, one he wouldn't permit himself to feel physically, as his hand continued to hover over her like a magician attempting to levitate her. The thought made her smile slightly at his dilemma.

Sound returned to her like someone turning up the volume on the radio, gradually and with it she appreciated first his heavy, frustrated sigh then clamor around her. Crews was calm in the midst of chaos; his eyes holding hers and keeping her present "in the moment" he liked to call it – keeping her with him.

She was still unable to summon speech, but she was able to connect to him. Her choice, her connection was physical - a bond of touch. She reached out to grasp one of his pale hands. He seemed mesmerized by her movement, stilled by her touch. She wove her small tanned hand into his; intertwining her lithe digits with his long freckled fingers noticing the slight whisper of the blonde hair from his knuckles as the pads of her fingers brushed over them. His hand flexed in rejection for just a moment, before he succumbed to the inevitable and closed his hand over hers and capturing it in his warmth.

"Reese," he spoke again and this time she heard the silken tenor of his voice become the same one he extended to those he cared for. She'd heard the same tone when Constance Griffiths first visited him in the station, when he was nervous as a schoolboy about the two women meeting. She heard it again when he spoke to Rachel Seybolt after Crews shot his father in his massive home. Men's voices change when they speak to their mates and their children. It was something female police officers learn to listen for. It was noticeable in that they become who they are outside the job, beyond the badge. He was that now with her and it felt oddly comfortable.

She had yet to appreciate why she was flat on her back and was rendered incapable of hearing for several moments after she regained consciousness. She instead wondered idly if Crews was the sort of man who allowed affections and nonsense to tumble from his mouth in unguarded moments of worry or in the throes of passion. He seemed to bite his tongue in an effort not to say much of anything and a tenseness edged at his features – it was worry, she realized - worry for her.

She called him back to her and reassured him with a simple but powerful word – his given name "Charlie," she slurred. He squeezed their linked hands and smiled softly.

"Don't be scared," he offered. Strangely she was not. She wondered briefly how she'd been hurt, but couldn't remember anything beyond their morning together. It was coffee for her and fruit for him consumed on a park bench with the sun shining on them in the long light of dawn. They'd been up all night.

They'd been on stakeout all night that much she recalled. They'd talked through the wee hours when nothing stirred and even when there was nothing to say, the silence was not uncomfortable. She remembered him telling her to rest; that he'd watch for them and how her slumping against the window morphed into her curled against his strong shoulder over time.

His arm rested warmly along her back and occasionally stroking her hair absently. She woke several times to find him still, quiet and patiently observing the house they were watching diligently. His eternal vigilance interspersed with brief respites; constructed of dropping his face into her hair to inhale her scent before returning to his solemn watch.

She remembered wondering how this man who she was certain was going to drive her certifiably insane during their first year together had become so necessary, so essential to her life. Her hand gravitated to his chest first, then to his waist as she hugged him in her sleep. She felt him smile against her forehead and the soft sigh of contentment that said they could stay in this car all night just like this and he'd be happy about it.

Dani reflected wryly that she wouldn't have so much as rested her eyes on surveillance with anyone else and here she was practically in her partner's lap_. Oh how a few years and man killing for you changes things…_

She knew immediately when she saw him standing in that orange grove that Roman Nevikov was dead; she also knew without a doubt that Charlie Crews had killed him.

The same man who made her feel safe and at peace was able to snuff out life without compunction. It did not follow him like other deaths obviously had. He'd killed Roman without a backwards glance. But he'd been just as cavalier about surrendering his own life in trade, seemingly without conscious thought, merely to see her safe and that was the part that bothered her.

The second more unsettling part of their citrus infused epiphany began as a deep trembling in the earth beneath her previously solid and sure feet and the crescendo was an overwhelming sound that could herald the end of the world – or simply the end of life as she knew it. Her solitary term on the planet, at war with the world was supplanted by something more essential to her than air - Crews.

For awhile after that fateful day, she could not see, smell or taste orange without the scented flavor summoning hot tears – "anybody ever love you that much?" ringing in her ears and the blue of his eyes staring into her soul.

Crews would later tell her that he was simply in the "moment" and that he knew what needed to be done, but she'd never bought his Zen shield entirely. Something in his eyes always told her when he lied even when it was to protect her.

Roman needed killing she reasoned and for a fleeting moment she wished she'd been the one to do it. But then she realized that for all her bluster and show, she did not have Crews icy blue water running through her veins. That it did not bother Charlie had to be a function of the fact he accepted Roman was evil and deserved it, but Crews was not the type of person to pass judgment on anyone – not even Roman.

"An evil man feels his death just as profoundly as a good man," he pronounced and then never spoke of it again.

She returned from mental wandering as his rough palm smoothed back her hair and lay gently against her forehead. She swore she could feel the every friction ridge of his fingerprints imprinting on her heart. His hand felt like fire as he struggled for words his eyes became wild. It was from that look and the fact that she now registered cold all over that she knew she was dying. From there it was an elementary deduction that she'd been shot and her blood and life were slowly ebbing from her and seeping into the earth beneath, returning her to the void from whence she came.

There were so many things she wanted to say to him, many more she envisioned doing to him (and with him) and it was going to be too late now. _Figures_ she thought _just when I figure out who I'm supposed to love and how I'm supposed to do it that I'd get killed_. But in the end she wanted to give him peace that was stolen from them both and the knowledge he mattered to her deeply. That required very little – in fact only three simple words she'd not said in years.

With flagging strength and damned annoying diminishing vision, she pulled on their link and he came willingly to her. Face to face, close enough to mix breath, she told him what he needed to know, what she wanted him to hear, the truth that they both knew in their hearts she gave voice to. His hot tears fell on her face, as he begged her not to go.

In the end she simply she'd promised him that she'd wait - secure in the knowledge that he would always come for her. As the world dimmed Charlie's smile and his tear filled brilliant blue eyes were the last things she saw before the darkness claimed her. In the end there was no pain, except in her heart.


	2. Chapter 2  Personal Angels

Personal Angels

They thought they lost her twice en route to the hospital and once more on the operating table, but her strong heart won out over the massive blood loss. By some miracle of science Dani Reese had not died; Tidwell liked to imagine that the collective desires of him and the man now standing vigil at her bedside was what drew her back from the abyss.

There were several tense hours, a flurry of phone calls, more crying, worry and the arrival of Dani's mother.

Crews stood apart from the crowd as Tidwell arrived with Roya Reese. He barely spoke, only mumbling his name and briefly nodding when introduced to Dani's mother unlike his usual bubbly effusive personal affect. Crews could be a real charmer when he wanted to, but this day all his energy was centered on the battle his partner was fighting. Although he stood rigidly calm and eerily still, his red-rimmed eyes gave him away as mortally affected. Tidwell might have thought he was meditating but for the storm that roiled behind the taller man's grey blue eyes.

As the hours wore on, the emergency room filled with a sea of navy uniforms and grey suits as LAPD's finest filed in to give blood and drink coffee in solemn silence for one of their own. Dani's mother sat quietly, and graciously accepted the condolences and well wishes of the throng of officers. As the wife of police royalty she was accustomed to the camaraderie of cops, but noticed this courtesy was not extended to Crews. Either by choice or habit, Crew remained alone and aloof outside the circle of emotion that contained everyone else. He existed outside their world.

When not otherwise occupied, Roya watched Crews intently with the same laser like focus of her daughter. Tidwell could now envision where Dani's intensity came from; for Roya was as sharp minded and observant as her daughter and knew instantly the tall red haired man was not simply her work mate – he was something else entirely.

Crews hadn't spoken to anyone since they arrived. Even when Bobby Stark slapped him on the back Charlie just flinched, and after a couple awkward moments Stark wandered off. Crews seemed locked in his own personal hell, though from time to time a slight smile would play on his features.

What Tidwell couldn't know was the terrible time Charlie was having reconciling the joy of knowing Dani Reese loved him with the fact she was fighting for her life and he'd nearly lost her. He wanted to be upset but those words leaving her lips were the ones he'd hoped for, the ones he'd dreamed of – and they played over and over in his mind's home movie. If he closed his eyes and locked out the sounds, he could still hear those three words leaving her lips.

Dani Reese, true to her obstinate nature, was determined even in her battle with death. For while her body healed, her mind stubbornly refused to wake and she lay in a deep coma as the hours turned to days and days to weeks. Slowly the apparatus keeping her alive disappeared until she appeared to be simply a fairy princess under a spell. Tidwell suspected Crews even tried to kiss her awake a couple of times, he knew he would have - if her partner had ever left them alone.

* * *

Weeks later Crews was still there, looking like a shiny car left too long in the rain. His expensive suit was dull and rumpled and his face bore a layer of rust colored haze like a thick layer of dust on a disused car. The disheveled detective sat with his head in his hands at the bedside of his partner; her fragile hold on life wore on Crews to the point he could not bear to leave.

Tidwell was pretty sure his dietary intake over the past two weeks consisted of coffee and one stale donut, but Crews made his worry pale in comparison. Crews was stretched to breaking point, even the doctors and nurses avoided him. He was now like those homeless people you avoided on the street, someone whose pain you did not want to acknowledge.

Initially Crews had coped well, concerning himself with the business of her getting better. As the coma persisted, Charlie Crews had become something of a ghost, a shadow of his former self. The steely sunshine that normally inhabited his disposition was under a heavy oppressive rain cloud. He only left her side to relieve himself and when shooed from Reese's room by nurses who bathed her daily. He stood stoically outside her door until the task was complete and entered the second the nurses left. He failed to even exchange pleasantries with them so focused was he on his partner.

Crews seemed like a man possessed of a singular knowledge that the rest of them lacked; as if he alone possessed the power to bring Dani back. His outward appearance was thin, sallow and scarecrow-like; swallowed by his rumpled dark blue suit. He'd worn through the pale blue shirt's elbows from leaning against her bed talking to her for hours.

Now the shirt was rolled past the worn spots and his jacket lay on the floor. Tidwell wasn't sure the man had changed clothes since the morning Dani was hurt. Crews clearly hadn't eaten in days and he hadn't shaved or showered either. It was peculiar even for his oddest of officers, but touching and spoke volumes about his devotion to her. It went unnoticed by no one, making Tidwell know that when Dani returned there was going to be hell to pay to keep them together as a team. No one (including him) was foolish enough to think they could ever keep them apart off duty now.

Crews sat by her bedside willing her to return, holding her limp hand softly sandwiched between his two larger ones. He'd long since cried himself dry of tears but he talked endless streams of nonsense to his partner.

That wasn't really new, Tidwell reflected. Dani had always complained that Crews babbled nonsense in the car, in the office, in the elevator. But it was familiar to her, and for that Tidwell was thankful. He knew coma patients were supposed to be able to hear you talking to them, but he just couldn't bring himself to do it beyond "hey babe", "I love you" and "good bye", plus he had a department to run. Truth be known he and Dani had drifted further apart since her kidnapping and Tidwell suspected it had a lot to do with her handsome protector and man of the hour on that day.

He spoke briefly to the doctors who expressed more concern about Crews than Dani. After all physically she was improving, only her will kept her locked in the darkness. Tidwell cautioned against anyone trying to remove the tired detective, knowing that would end badly. The doctor, who knew Crews was her partner, asked if he was also her lover. Tidwell thought and wanted to say, _"no, I am,"_ but answered honestly in the affirmative. The doctor shook his head in understanding and retreated quietly.

Before he departed for a full day at work, Tidwell looked in on them locked in their own circle of two and listened to snatches of Crews commentary. "Look, I know you said you'd wait, but not like this Dani. Can't you hear me? I've come. I'm here. Come back Reese, please," Crews said softly, before resting his forehead down on the bed beside her. "Come on Reese. Please hear me. Wake up." It was pitiful his single mindedness and also entirely emblematic of the devotion Crews had to his partner.

On the way to his car he ran into Mrs. Reese being brought for her daily visit by Crews' roommate slash accountant slash prison buddy Ted Early. Early always appeared guilty when Tidwell looked at him. He was never entirely certain what Early had done to earn that hangdog countenance, but the man wore it well. Mrs. Reese was on his arm and her regal air never suffered despite the dire circumstance of her daughter's medical condition. She believed, with a conviction wrought in iron, that Dani would wake when she was ready, and it was an unshakeable belief.

Ted asked a blinding flash of the obvious question. "Is he still in there?"

"You figure out a way to get him to leave let me know," the Captain replied tersely.

"I'm worried about him," Ted voiced everyone's concerns. "He hasn't eaten or slept really in what… days, weeks? Charlie can come unraveled sometimes. Reese keeps him balanced. She pulls him up short when he gets too wild. Without her he's untethered, lost. I don't know how much more of this he can take."

"You're his friend. Talk to him," Tidwell coached.

"Believe me, I've tried. Wild horses couldn't drag him away from her," Ted said glumly. The men exchanged a look that said _there's devotion and then there's Lassie laying on the grave of a dead kid and refusing to eat stupidity._

"I will talk to him," Roya Reese pronounced, "Wait here." She strode purposefully into the hospital leaving both men to sigh their resignation that some things called for a strong woman. There was none stronger than Dani's mother, except possibly the wild young woman who lay still and quiet under a white sheet while her own personal angel kept watch.

* * *

He was wandering between sleep and consciousness, when he heard Dani speak his name. "Crews," he heard it distinctly and his head snapped up. But it was not Dani, who slumbered peacefully, it was her mother; a small, fine, delicate looking woman with iron in her voice and the wisdom and patience of one who had seen much, endured much.

She knew she had fooled the tired man. People often mistook Dani and Roya for one another on the phone their voices were so similar, so she played on her advantage. "Detective, do you know the story called 'Arabian Nights'?"

Dani's mother had the same commanding tone that forced him to look at her when she was angry. His gravel filled eyes flicked to hers and then back to Dani. He shook his head no, but remained mute.

"The young woman in the tale Arabian Nights is to be executed so she constructs the most mind boggling tales to enrapture her slayer and buy herself more time. Did you know this?"

Charlie again shook his head no.

"In the end this talking is just buying time with her, isn't it?" she said presciently.

He nodded yes this time.

"Do you love my daughter?" she asked very gently. "There is no shame in it. A blind man could see that you do," she offered when he failed to respond even by a gesture.

He simply gazed at Dani and his long lost tears returned. "Tell her," Roya implored, "Then when the morning comes, if you are out of stories – you must let her go."


	3. Chapter 3  Letting Go

**Letting Go…**

Charlie Crews left his partner's side for the first time in weeks and wandered the hospital's white antiseptic hallways, quiet at this late hour of the night. He needed to think and had no particular destination, which is why, when his feet steered him to the hospital's chapel, it surprised him. Charlie's family was never particularly religious and any inkling of starting a relationship with God went out the door when his many prayers went unanswered in prison.

He pushed aside the swinging doors and entered the quiet space. Its pseudo stained glass windows in the front, lit from behind with fluorescent fixtures were a sad substitute for real sunlight through true windows. He absently realized it had been many days since he'd seen the sun and the hospital reminded him of prison in more ways than the simple institution should have. Dani was trapped there and he would not leave her – trapping him too.

He wandered the pews, running his hands over the smooth wood and the velour cushions, avoiding a talk with whoever held power and sway in this realm. He considered the idiocy of talking to someone who was not there – at least he'd never seen any sign of a higher power. Then he realized talking to himself was the equivalent, which was how he rationalized his first talk with God in ten years.

"I don't believe in you, you know?" he spoke the words to the void. "People think Zen is a substitute religion, but it's not – it's a way of life. It's a choice to not fear the hereafter but to live in the now. I behave the way I do because I choose to, not because I'm afraid of going to hell. I've already been there." He stopped and listened for a response he knew would not come.

"But we're not here about me. I'm here about her. She does believe in you. Even though she's shut it away, says she's lost her faith – I still see it. She believes in the unbelievable, in things that could not possibly be – like me being a cop again. She is why I'm still here, in this room, talking to someone I don't believe in," he laughed.

"Her mother says I should let go." Charlie repeated the guidance Dani's mother had proposed. "Isn't that what I've been trying to do?" His voice had a hard edge, anger directed at himself.

Failure again. Cost again. Pain and the agony of having the things and people who mattered ripped away from him - again. "Why is it so hard to let go? I'm not supposed to be attached to anyone, to anything… because that's one more thing they can take from you. How did that happen?" he whispered his personal indictment caustically.

"The truth is… and you're gonna love this. The truth is that I never got out," he voiced his epiphany. "I'm still there. I'm still in prison. Still held hostage by privation and fear." He was clearly babbling now, but saying things that mattered.

"I keep the whole world at bay so they can't take anything more from me and somehow she's managed to become my whole world." He paused, narrowed his eyes, and laughed again. His eyes were wild and he was on the verge of a full-fledged rant like he used to have in solitary, back when he'd rather not remember.

He gripped the edge of the wooden pew tightly and let fly his anger, his rage, his impotence at being unable to help Dani Reese. He tossed it into the void, daring it to come back. "She doesn't buy any of my bull shit….not the smile and definitely not the Zen." This made him chuckle to himself. "Reese calls me on it every single time and tells me what a bunch of crap it is. She sees me – the rage and darkness and pain I manage to hide from everyone else. The animal I can become, the things that I've done, the men I've killed…"

He was working himself into a frenzied soliloquy. "She never asks me about it because she already knows – knows in a way that only someone who's been where I've been can. She gets me – completely, without me having to tell her a thing." His tears returned hot and bitter, like acid staining his face. He wiped ineffectually at his face with the back of his hand, but his facial hair just trapped the moisture against his cheeks.

He dropped to his knees and sobbed like he hadn't since his first night in Pelican Bay. He cried until he couldn't breath, and when he looked up through the tears at the psychedelic excuse for stained glass he saw her. He knew it couldn't be her, but that's what he saw – Dani Reese, wearing the most annoyed expression, tapping her foot and waiting for him.

"Tell me what to do, Reese," he begged the mirage. His tears cleared and above the altar he saw words written there that read _"What you are is what you have been. What you will be is what you do now." _ He smiled knowingly, these were the words of Buddha. "I understand," he promised. "Maybe you are there, maybe…" He hurried back to his partner knowing what he must do.

She looked new to him after even his brief absence. She seemed different, lighter somehow and happier. He realized he wanted her to come back for himself. If she was not in pain and she was content to stay there – then he would be the one to wait - faithfully. For as long as it took. Forever if that's what it took, but first he had to tell her what was in his heart.

"I'm a wreck without you, Dani. God help me but I do love you…" He rested his head on her shoulder and deeply inhaled the smell that was uniquely her. "You come back when you're ready, sweetheart and I'll be here. I'll always be here." He wrapped his arm around her drawing her small form to his chest and gave himself over to sleep. "But I'm not letting go, I'll never let go…if you go, I go…." Deep down he hoped that he never awoke again unless she did.


	4. Chapter 4  Wide Awake & Dreaming

**Wide Awake and Dreaming**

Dani was dreaming. She was sitting on a swing in a vast empty playground. The sun was shining brightly turning dewdrops into diamonds. The sky was an impossible blue, and the grass was the emerald green you only see on golf courses. There was no litter, no noise, no people, just birds singing and the solid feeling of the planet spinning underneath everything. It was the Zen state Charlie would often describe as being "one" with the world.

She was swinging back and forth between this world and the next. When she swung backwards, strong arms gathered her to a warm solid chest and whispered her name on a soft wind into her hair. As she rose, it felt as though she might take flight. She was happy, giddy, dizzy, but joyous.

With each swing, the voice became fainter on the upswing, but it remained constant and she felt herself drawn back to it – to him - magnetically. She leaned back and looked at the person propelling her higher and higher, yet holding her in this world on an invisible string. He seemed taller than she recalled and thinner, but his eyes remained a piercing blue and his shock of red hair she'd know anywhere even upside down and dreaming.

The impression was sudden and immediate; she could feel him, smell him. He surrounded her, enveloped her, immersed her in a feeling uniquely Crews. There was no way to describe it – words failed. It was as if he operated at a frequency of light only visible to her, his soul vibrating with a warmth that only she could feel.

"Crews," she smiled and mumbled his name in her sleep.

She blinked awake to the feel of Charlie Crews snoring lightly on her shoulder, with his arm wrapped around her waist. Her hipbone was snugged up against the hollow of his chest and the softness of his red hair whispered against her cheek. She did not take in other things, surroundings, furniture, times, dates – none of it mattered, only the man sleeping beside her.

She sunk her fingers deep into his hair and drew him closer still. He shifted in his deep sleep and laid a tender kiss on her collarbone and nuzzled her throat, "Dani" his dreamy commentary reinforcing that she wasn't just some random girl he held to his chest. It was her he wanted, her he dreamed of and yearned for. It was exhilarating and frightening at the same time. Crews was pushing her on that swing and pulling her back to him and he had been since the beginning.

"Crews," she called to him, but he was deep in exhausted sleep and would not wake. She reached deep and pulled that magical rabbit from her hat, "Charlie" she whispered against his forehead. That did the trick as she felt him stir beside her.

"Hey," she jostled helping him along, "no sleeping on the stakeout remember?"

"Where have you been?" he eyed her sleepily, still not fully awake.

"Here. I've been here, Charlie."

"Before you were so far away," he mumbled looking down, "I thought I'd lost you."

"You can't lose me," she smiled and gripped his hand. "We're partners right?"

"No. Not anymore," he said firmly, now awake and alert.

"No? Did something happen while I was out?" She went from zero to pissed off in 2.8 seconds just like he knew she would. "That's bullshit. What happened wasn't your fault," she blustered.

"You don't even remember what happened do you?"

"I…uh…no…" she stumbled as he leaned in close and cupped her face with his palm.

"I fell in love with you," he said softly, stroking her face. She bit her lip, but didn't speak so he continued. "I can't go back to just being your partner at work. I want to look after you, to care about you in a way work won't allow. I want to fall asleep with you every night and wake up with you every morning for as long as I live."

"Could we go back just a minute for those of us who just woke up? When did all this happen?"

"Go back where? To before we met? Before we were in love? Before we admitted it? Do you want to go back there?"

"No," she smiled, and then added their internal joke. "Thought there was no past, no future, just now."

"Do you love me now?" he asked like his world didn't balance on her answer.

She tried to push herself into a sitting a position but needed and let him help her which was a first. "Uh… yeah, yep," she confessed quickly averting her eyes like she had something to be ashamed of. "I do and that's not something I expected."

"I like that – to be unexpected," he grinned.

She blushed and he scooted closer to her on the bed.

"Are you ready?" his voice a low tone that set off a riot of feeling she was sure was in no way related to her medical condition.

"Ready for what?" she wondered aloud.

"I'm gonna kiss you now," he promised in a voice so low it dragged the pavement.

His cracked lips were close enough to visualize her tongue wetting them and the heat she felt had nothing to do with any infection. Charlie Crews was about to do unspeakable things to her for the rest of her life and it started right here with this kiss. She looked up into his eyes and found him watching her intently. His eyes shifted from her lips to her eyes and back. He dipped his head close and almost touched her then withdrew.

Her frustrated sigh made him smile and his eyes softened. "Tell me you love me again," he negotiated his terms.

"I never said that," she flatly denied out of habit.

"No?" He was millimeters from beginning a kiss that she ached to feel. "Are you sure? Cause I distinctly remember you saying that…"

She groaned in agony, rolled her eyes, tossed her head back and he dove for her exposed throat like a vampire. The trail of hot kisses he planted along her neck ended at her ear where his tone sent chills up her spine. "I want you to say the words, Dani." His implication replete with the unspoken _"I won't give you what we both want until you do."_

"All right damn it…" she muttered, "I love you. You drive me insane, you talk way too much, this fruit thing is idiotic and I'm not sure I'll live five more minutes if you don't kiss me right now, Crews." It was more than he'd hoped for from his usually reticent partner.

"Are you always so pushy?" he teased as he closed on her mouth. Whatever response was on her lips was swallowed as he framed his hands around her face and kissed them both breathless.

The nurse station suddenly registered a meteoric rise in Dani's Reese's vitals. Her temperature, blood pressure and heart rate shot up. Her mother stood outside the room observing her daughter and Crews as the nurse approached at a quick step.

"Is she awake?" the woman in hospital whites asked.

"Yes," Roya responded with a knowing smile. "Perhaps for the very first time."

_Author's Note: This story is heavy on the angst and dedicated to my devoted beta (Jo Taylor) who brings order from the chaos and keeps me honest in tone, tenor, grammar and content. But you guys had to know I wasn't gonna kill Dani off - they belong together - they are both just too stubborn to see it. So I gave them a little push :)_


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